Later, I applied to five different countries, to five different universities after that year as I tried to find a place for myself. I applied in Germany – Konstanz, a new university had been established there. The rector was someone with whom I later made friends, I had a lot in common with him, as I did with Lord Dahrendorf who later became rector of LSE, or rather – I don’t remember, I think it was St Anthony’s. In any case, he was in Oxford. He was later made a British Lord, this German social democrat whose views became more conservative. He was a wonderful person, very wise, exceptionally gentle. I had a lot of contact with him on account of Vienna – I’ll talk about that later, the Vienna Institute of my friend, Krzysztof Michalski. I applied in Great Britain. I can’t remember where else I applied; I made several applications in France. And once, when I visited my family In Uppsala, Sweden – my brother with his wife and our daughter, she had problems with her confused identity, she’d say, ‘All of my parents’.

That was when I got a call from my friend, he’s one of my closest friends, he’s a professor in Bologna. Pierre Hassner – an eminent expert, political philosopher and theorist on international relations. Unfortunately, he’s very ill these days. He called me – he always used to say, ‘Listen, I don’t know if this makes any sense, but if you could come to Paris, that might be really useful, because Raymond Aron…’ he was one of the most important people in the field of humanities in the world, to say nothing of France – he was a philosopher, sociologist, strategist, expert in international relations who had a first rate knowledge of economics. He knew everything about social sciences, he was an exceptional man. ‘Listen, he has this so-called poste rouge meaning red – a red post which in CRN means that it’s a special posting for chercheurs étrangers. It’s for academics from overseas so that they can carry on with their research for a year, for instance. At the moment, he has this at his disposal. If you can come, I don’t know if this makes any sense, then he’d welcome you and if he likes you, maybe he could give it to you’. I, of course, replied, ‘Of course I’ll come’.

Aleksander Smolar (b. 1940) is a Polish writer, political activist and adviser, vice-president of the Institute for Human Sciences and president of the Stefan Batory Foundation.